Construction: Full Speed Ahead!

Things just keep getting more and more exciting around here. Yesterday we got cement, today we got floors & some walls! Joel & Chris got here this morning and were very industrious. Things are really taking shape but when asked when he thought he'd be back, he said "I TOLD you, "next year!"... so hard to say when we could expect a roof!

Kid Free!!!!!!!

Ok, maybe it's not nice to put so many exclamation points on that but since it's a very temporary state, I think it's ok. :))

Mum phoned me the other day and said that since she's on vacation this week, she thought she'd have a sleepover with ALL THREE girls! I tried (well, not very hard really) to talk her out of it but she was all gung ho. Far be it from me to deprive her & GranGrad of their grandchildren!

This morning I packed them up & drove them to M&D's and had lunch with them there and then hit the road! They didn't seem to worried about staying there so I didn't worry about leaving them! They're in very experienced & good hands. Mum had lots of things planned for them and the girls had a few ideas of what they wanted to do so they should be able to put the time in without much trouble. The girls wanted to play with the babies, watch a movie, draw pictures, go out and run around on the deck, maybe go for a walk to see the stream... and Mum had gotten some kind of crafty project for them and I hear there's Dora cereal for breakfast in the morning!

I came home, giddy at the thought of being alone & duty free.... and found a carpenter in my driveway! Woohoo! We got cement today & I think walls & a floor tomorrow!!

Tonight Murray & I went out for supper and had some yummy Chinese food & then went to look at windows, doors & flooring. The first part he enjoyed, the second part was merely tolerated. ; )))

Murray had some bad news this week, his Christian Hockey League team fell apart & folded. They'd defaulted on the last few games. Some of their guys had moved away, some had gone back to a team they'd belonged to previously that had become active again etc. and there just weren't enough players coming out for the games. He was a little upset about that but within a day, another team had snapped him up and today another team was after him. Defencemen of his caliber are quite valuable it seems! Even better news, the money he'd already paid to the first team is going to cover what he needs for the 2nd team. He was pretty sure that the first payment would just disappear & he'd have to pay the full amount to the 2nd team too. (you can imagine what I thought of that idea!!!!!!!!)

While Murray was at hockey, I worked away on getting this blog up to date so I wouldn't start getting any hate mail! This week was a little busy with something going on every night. Tues I had the multiples meeting, Wed was my Captivating course, Thurs night was choir... Most nights I just came home, checked email or curled up on the couch for a bit and then went to bed. In fact, I think that's where I'm headed now & I'm going to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep as hard as I can for as long as I want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More Snow!

We had another snowy day this week but again, it's all melted away. The kids enjoyed playing in it while it was here though. It rained quite a bit and that made for soggy snowballs & very wet mittens in a hurry!

One week later, still in the Mazda...

Ok so it was kind of fun having a different car for the first few days but now it's getting old. I keep forgetting to get my CD's & sunglasses & other car accessories from our car so I can use them in the rental. It's a verrrrrrrry tight fit to get my big hips squeezed through the seats to the back to buckle Lovey into her seat. I can't reach anything for her once I'm back in the driver's seat so if she drops her cup or animal or wants a snack, she's S.O.L. When we were coming back from M&D's last week, it was after supper and the sun had already gone down. We'd gotten them all in & were just settling into our spots when her tiny little voice said "it's really dark here. I can't see!"

I talked to the shop this week & the repairs have been approved and now they're waiting for parts to arrive. I drove by & had a peek yesterday & the car hasn't budged since the day it arrived there so it doesn't look like we'll have it back for awhile yet.

Betty Crockers In Training

We did a little baking earlier this week & the girls took their "j0bs" very seriously! When I suggested peanut butter cookies (we have a surplus of pb at the moment) Honey was insistent that we make chocolate chip instead. I explained that we needed to use up some of the peanut butter. She said "but they can have chocolate chips in them though! it's my job!" She was afraid that if we made chip-less cookies, there would be nothing for her to do! So rather than put the poor child out of work, we improvised the recipe and added the chips & it worked out just fine. Sweetie measured out the brown sugar, Honey was on chips and Lovey did white sugar while I fired in all the rest of the ingredients before they could make too much of a mess with theirs! Sweetie managed to ingest quite a bit of the brown sugar and still spill some on the floor. She had fun though!
Once we had the dough all mixed up they were very keen to taste their concoction & were very happy to have a couple spoonfuls of the batter. I may have sampled a bit too... They turned out great!

Honey got busted "cleaning up" Sweetie's sugar spillage!

Holy Pilasters Batman!

Work has officially begun!!!!!!!! My favourite carpenter arrived today with his toys and a helper and they put in the forms. It took them 3 hours to get the holes dug & filled back in. Cement to come later this week I think.

Sooooo exciting!!!!!!!

His wife & 2 sons also came with him so we got to visit while he worked outside. The kids all played and circus boy here showed me a few tricks on the rings!

After awhile we put on a Curious George movie & Angela & I fell asleep (room got cozy when I put the fire on!) while they watched TV. Quality time, that's what friendship is all about!

Just when I think I'm getting somewhere...

So I've been practicing my photoshop editing, thinking I'm really catching on. I had a question for Shooter Shelley so I phoned her on the weekend & we chatted about monitor calibration software & I got her recommendations etc. She suggested I send her some of my recent efforts as I hadn't shown her anything in awhile. I know she's swamped with proofing lately (those weddings I helped her with in Aug still aren't ready to show the brides and lots of other sessions waiting too) so I hadn't bothered her with any of my little snapshots for awhile.

Since she left herself wide open with that suggestion, I couldn't resist. So I sent her this one:

plus my edited version which I thought I'd done a pretty good job on the eye pop and boosting colour etc:

She took the time to look at them AND then played with my SOOC to show me what she would have done (which I'd hoped she'd do but hadn't wanted to ask her):

So although she can obviously wipe the floor with me, I thought it was encouraging that my image was good enough to start with that she could turn into THIS. If it was total crap, she wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. She also sent screen captures with pointers and explanations of what she was doing & what tools she did it with etc. I don't think I could quite recreate it, but it helped me understand!